PREFACE. 



A Hum nee spiro, ncc si)ei"(). 



Since the publication of Ellis's Essay on Corallines in the 

 year 1755, no separate work has appeared in illustration of our 

 native Zoophytes. In the meantime, and more especially within 

 these few last years, a much more accurate knowledge of their 

 structure has been attained, and many species have been added 

 to the list ; and it has been my object to give here an account 

 of these discoveries, to connect them with what had been previous- 

 ly made known, and to combine the whole under a system 

 more in harmony with the anatomy of the objects than has 

 hitherto been done. If I have succeeded in bringing within a 

 convenient volume, the materials that at present lie scattered 

 through many expensive and miscellaneous ones, some of them 

 too of difficult acquisition, I may, perhaps, claim the merit of 

 having conferred no inconsiderable benefit on the student, even 

 should his future studies convince him that I have not forwarded 

 or enriched this particular branch of natural history by any no- 

 velties. Originality indeed has been less my aim than fulness 

 and accuracy of compilation ; but I have endeavoured to quali- 

 fy myself for this apparently humble task by many personal re- 

 searches and observations on the species that are found in my own 

 neighbourhood, under the conviction that a compiler will rarely 

 succeed in giving a correct idea or representation of the objects 



